ALL WOUND UP

Many of us take our watches for granted, ab­sent­mind­edly wind­ing them when they stop or shak­ing them to keep the au­to­matic mech­a­nism go­ing. With our mo­bile phones con­stantly at the ready, we’ve all been guilty of rarely look­ing at our watches, per­haps only as meet­ings near an end, and leav­ing them out unat­tended on the night­stand as we sleep.

But you have a choice—you can con­tinue to de­mor­alise your watch or you can give it the life it de­serves: top-notch care when it’s off your wrist in a pil­lowed home that keeps it tick­ing safely and con­sis­tently. There’s a short list of high-end brands mak­ing lux­ury watch winders for this pur­pose, and it’s led by Buben & Zor­weg. The Ger­man com­pany’s cre­ations are works of art whose sole pur­pose is to care for your watch—or your grow­ing col­lec­tion. Fea­tures in­clude fin­ger­print-recog­ni­tion locks, bul­let­proof “spy glass,” and ma­te­ri­als such as Ital­ian nappa leather, wal­nut burl, mother-of-pearl and brushed stain­less steel. At the heart of Buben & Zor­weg’s op­u­lent de­signs is the watch winder, keep­ing man­u­ally wound watches tick­ing away and au­to­matic time­pieces mov­ing.

By buy­ing one of the brand’s me­chan­i­cal works of art, which are priced from HK$25,000 to HK$3.8 mil­lion, you’ll be join­ing a client list— con­fi­den­tial, of course—of high-net­worth in­di­vid­u­als and Hol­ly­wood stars. And at these price points, you don’t just get a one-act won­der. The Soli­taire Vi­sion, for in­stance, in­cludes a safe, a col­lec­tion of Timem­o­ver watch winders, a hu­mi­dor, draw­ers for stor­ing jew­ellery and watches, a built-in sound sys­tem with Blue­tooth func­tion­al­ity, and a fly­ing minute tour­bil­lon time­piece.

Don’t think of watch winders as sim­ply spin­ning, gy­rat­ing watch hold­ers. “The de­signs are unique but very time­less,” says Vicky Du of Buben & Zor­weg Shang­hai. “They’re some­thing you will love in 20 or 30 years as much as you do now. It’s not a lux­ury prod­uct that many peo­ple own; it’s a well-kept se­cret and there­fore even more spe­cial.”